This past week our climate dialogue has been exposed to a multitude of decorative, medicinal, and agricultural plants. We visited the country’s national botanical gardens and received a tour of the garden. It contains impressive plants from around Africa and was first created to test the suitability of foreign plants in Tanzania, so it truly is a botanist’s dream destination in Dar. We also explored a rainforest occupied by monkeys and the trees that support them. We also explored the island of Zanzibar’s cash crops on an agricultural tour. As an environmental engineer and plant enthusiast, I wanted to compile some of the palms, crops, and trees I’ve encountered during this past week’s excursions.
Papaya tree
The papaya tree is a popular crop grown in Zanzibar and commonly traded across the Indian Ocean. Other than the sweet fruit the tree produces, the fruit has another use as our class has learned. Throughout the beaches in Zanzibar spiky sea urchins can be found. The milk of the Papaya fruit, we learned contains an enzyme that aids in removing sea urchins. This knowledge came in handy when a fellow student had an unfortunate encounter with a sea urchin. Allowing the papaya milk to sit on the skin for around 15 minutes removed the urchin. Nature is awesome.
Madagascar Palms
Coastal Tanzania and Zanzibar are filled with palms. My favorite palm I saw had the appearance of a Dr. Seuss book. With a wide spike base, this palm was nearly 40 feet tall and sat in the center of the botanical garden in Dar. Although the tree doesn’t grow natively in Tanzania the groundskeeper who maintains the tree was still proud of his ability to upkeep the palm and explained the tree has been at the location for longer than the Republic of Tanzania had been a country.
Kisukari Banana Tree
Tanzania has a variety of different banana species. The ones that we have been eating and the ones we saw growing by our hotel are smaller than your finger and grow with a large flower in the center. They are called “Kisakuri” bananas where “sakuri” in Swahili means sugar, which is an indication of there sweet flavor. This is a junto that We also learned the large leafs are used as plates and sometimes as temporary cover from rain storms. These types of bananas are also a staple in Zanzabari diet.
True Cinnamon Tree
One of the most interesting crops we learned about was the cinnamon tree. Peeling the bark and drying it allows for the creation of cinnamon powder used in baking and fragrances. Our guide told us the tree can tolerate the peeling of bark, but one should be careful to harvest one side of the tree at a time so as to not harm the tree. The most interesting part about the tree was that harvesting the roots or the base of the tree revealed a different smell. Instead of cinnamon the base of the tree smelled like Vicks Vapor rub. That’s because this raw material has been medicinal to relieve joint pain and is the ingredient in Vicks that gives it its distinct smell.
Coconut Tree
Similar to most tropical communities coconuts are implemented into a lot of Tanzanian cuisine and drinking coconut water from a coconut has become very popular during our dialogue. If you are lucky you may even get to watch a local farmer climb 50 feet up a coconut tree to pick a coconut like we witnessed. The strategy to climbing a coconut tree is to tie rope to your feet in a loop and shimmy up the tree keeping the rope in tension. It is truly a spectacle to see.
Turmeric
Tumeric is a flowering plant and the root is harvested for many dishes and dyes. After the turmeric roots are boiled and dried they can be turned into a powder. The powder is used in a lot of Indian dishes and due to the cultural fusion between Tanzania and India the powder is used in a lot of Tanzanian cuisine. The tumeric gives a dish its orange hue. Tumeric is also used in fabric dying.
Ginger
Similar to Tumeric, ginger is a flowering plant that has roots to harvest. When learning about ginger harvesting, our guide let us sample raw ginger root. This was helpful for those of us battling traveler’s disease as ginger is known to quell stomach issues.
Mangroves
Mangroves play a vital role in coastal resilience due to their ability to absorb wave energy and their ability to treat seawater within estuary ecosystems. In Zanzibar, many of the mangroves were over-harvested and used for construction due to the salt in the wood that would resist pests. What remains of mangroves on the island are from conservation efforts or are from government efforts to start growing mangroves throughout the coast. Mangrove trees in the park we visited created an intricate root network that could uptake the salinated water.
True Nutmeg
One of the most interesting spices we learned about came from a dark-leaved evergreen tree. The tree grows fruit with very useful content inside. The black seed is wrapped in a red mace, which our tour guide aptly nicknamed a “ladybug pit.” The red mace easily is peeled out and used in perfume as an aphrodisiac and to soothe babies. The seed itself contains nutmeg. Ground up, the spice is one of the key exports on the spice island of Zanzibar and is used in many traditional dishes. In the US we may recognize it as an important ingredient in egg nog.
Ylang-Ylang Tree
Although not native to the island of Tanzania, this tree is grown throughout the island due to the fragrant flowers it produces. The strong floral fragrance was probably one of the best smells I had ever smelled. Our guide let us know the flower is exported and is used in many commonly used perfumes including a lot of Chanel’s fragrances. I had to make sure to buy a locally created perfume made from the flower before I left.
Black pepper
Another crop grown in the spice island of Zanzibar is the flowering vine that produces stone fruit. The stone fruit is dried and produces a single peppercorn. What I thought was interesting about this plant was that the stem that supports the stone fruit also has a faint taste of pepper.
The plants grown here for me really underscore the importance and utility of raw materials and how much we still rely on the natural system even if in Boston we aren’t interfacing with the plants that grow our raw materials every day.
